


District One (The Boy with the Trident)

by aimmyarrowshigh



Series: Five Places Cinna Came From [2]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, District 1, District 11, Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage, Forced Prostitution, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Horror, Revolutionaries, Slave Trade, Tigers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crowd out in the Capitol took one look at him and roared and Cinna’s heart felt like it might beat out of his chest when this naked, wild boy from District Four tilted his head, just so, and acknowledged the crowd with a smirk.</p>
<p>“Him,” Cinna said, pointing to the screen and looking up at his mother. “Let’s sponsor him.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	District One (The Boy with the Trident)

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Spoilers for all three books (although as long as you know what Finnick does for a living and who Annie is, you're probably okay on _Mockingjay_ ). Violence, forced sexual slavery, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, bad language, character death, underage sexual contact, pornography/prostitution. All of the usual feel-good content of Collins' Hunger Games world!  
>  **Major trigger warnings:** Forced sexual slavery.  
>  **Disclaimer** : I only own the original characters and concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/57713.html) on 1 May 2011.

** Five Places Cinna Came From  
 _District One: The Boy with the Trident_ **

“So, my dear sweet boy,” cooed Mrs. Persephone Midas, smoothing her fingers through her only son’s fine brown hair, “Which of the Tributes do you fancy this year? Hmm? I know Pyreight was always very kind to you at school.”

Cinnabar Midas didn’t tell her that Pyreight had actually been an insufferable bully – all of the Volunteers were – and that he was the one who had burned Cinna’s clothes after Games Education one day last year. He was the one who punched Cinna in the eye back in March and snarled, _stop frothing staring, freak; I could do better than you with one arm cut off_. 

Cinna hadn’t been staring at Pyreight, anyway. Just his clothes. Just the skinny cut of Pyreight’s silk tie and the strange shape of the tie-tack, like a great opal trackerjacker. 

“No,” Cinna said, tilting his head to allow Persephone to keep combing his hair. “I haven’t decided yet. They’re not so impressive this year. I know I don’t want Pyreight or Oxsana, though.” He smiled at his doting mother. “Thank you for letting me choose this year.”

Persephone kissed the top of Cinna’s head. “You were so brave at the Reaping ceremony, it’s only fair. You know how much your father and Lanus love the Games. It’s the best time of their year.”

Cinna smiled. “The Reaping wasn’t that scary. Everyone knew Pyreight or Pontius was going to be chosen, anyway.”

The side of Persephone Midas’ mouth twitched with an almost imperceptible tic. “I’m just glad that you’re too small to be a Volunteer, sweetest heart. You’ll make such a wonderful little couturier one day.”

Cinna flushed. “Thanks.” A huge cheer came up on their videoscreen. “It’s time for the opening ceremonies!”

“Let’s see if we can spot Father and Lanus,” Persephone said, her eyes warm with love for her son but dazed, as always, from the opillium. 

Cinna knew he wouldn’t be scouring the stands for his father any more than his mother would actually focus on what was happening on the screen at all. Cinna liked the Games alright – some years were more interesting, more exciting than others – but he lived for the designs of the Opening Ceremonies and the interviews. Only the best designers in Panem were selected for the Games, and Cinna followed the receptions of all of the runway shows and collection photospreads in the glossies so closely that his father joked that soon, they would need to build Cinna a whole new wing of the house just for his ‘fashion nonsense.’

Nonsense or not, Cinna knew one thing: he was good. He was really good for his age, and if he kept it up and stuck close to his father’s friends, especially Lanus, then he could get drafted out of One to design for the Games one day.

The lights lowered in the massive stadium onscreen and with a loud, high wail, the music began and the processional started, Claudius Templesmith announcing in a voiceover.

Pyreight and Oxsana looked like they’d been dipped in gold. Something about each of them had changed – Cinna thought maybe Pyreight’s cheekbones had been sharpened; they looked almost weaponized now. Oxsana’s eyes seemed wider than Cinna remembered, but she was much older than he and Pyreight – she had Volunteered, since next year she would be too old to play in the Games. Cinna was certain that her breasts were bigger. She looked nice – they both did, really, all shining against the lights – but it didn’t seem functional. They were pretty. They were statues. They weren’t frightening.

The District Two representatives were meant to look scary. Their costumes are the same as they had been the year before, and the year before that, maybe back sixty-five years. Ill-fitting pants and boxy jackets with matching caps and heavy rubber-soled boots, all in a laughable earth-toned pattern that Cinna had learned from an old book used to be considered camouflage. They weren’t glamorous, but both tributes were huge – even the girl looked like she could throw about three Cinnas at once if she wanted. They were both older, like Oxsana, and Cinna didn’t think it would be a stretch for one of them to win.

The boy from District Three had thick glasses that kept sliding down his nose. He was so thin that Cinna had to look away, embarrassed for him to be paraded around behind the huge boy from District Two and –

That boy behind him was _naked_.

Cinna thumbed at his eyes in disbelief and looked back to the screen – oh, he wasn’t _naked_ , not exactly. There was a tiny swatch of gray-green netting tangled around him like a skein of seaweed and his skin had been freckled with tiny seashells. His skin was sunkissed – Cinna thought maybe it had been _real sun_ , too, and it seemed so exotic and wild and fierce; real sunshine! – and he’d been rubbed all over with something that made him glisten. He had huge green eyes and steady gaze and he didn’t even seem to notice that he was _naked_ in front of all of Panem.

The crowd out in the Capitol took one look at him and roared and Cinna’s heart felt like it might beat out of his chest when this naked, wild boy from District Four tilted his head, just so, and acknowledged the crowd with a smirk.

“Him,” Cinna said, pointing to the screen and looking up at his mother. “Let’s sponsor him.”

Persephone smiled indulgently. “What do you think we should have Father make for him?”

Cinna drank in the Tribute, the dimples at the base of his spine and the ropy muscles glistening under all those bright Capitol lights. He knew that District Four was near the sea; this boy must know how to swim.

Cinna imagined him in the water. He imagined the sun beating down on all that skin, toasting it warm and brown and beautiful. 

He stared at those calm, fierce sea-green eyes.

“A trident,” Cinna said finally. “A gold trident. Really sharp.”

It was only later, when Caesar Flickerman and Couric Ombudsman were chitter-chattering about that very same boy, calling early odds on him to be in the final eight contenders, that Cinna realized that the wild boy from District Four was the youngest in the arena, and the only Tribute smaller was the anemic boy from District Three. If he’d realized that, maybe he would have chosen another Tribute to sponsor, maybe the huge boy from District Two or the crafty-looking girl from Eleven. 

It was that costume. Or the lack of one. Cinna noticed the boy – Finnick, Caesar had called him; _can we call you Finn? You can call me whatever you want as long as you call me Victor_ – because he could practically see the sunlight and seawater bleeding out of him in all that skin. He looked like a naiad, ready to seduce all of Panem into the water to die.

That costume probably saved Finnick Odair’s life, and Cinna’s trident would help.

When Cinna went to bed that night, he dialed up a still shot of Finnick’s smirk to the crowd on the big screen in his wall and stared at it, lettings its gentle electric hum glow over him. 

“Finnick,” Cinna whispered, trying the name out on his lips. “Finnick Odair.” 

His hand slipped under the waistband of his soft sleep-pants. He’d done this before, obviously; he was a normal teenage boy. But he’d never done it for a specific face, for a particular pair of wide green eyes, for smirking lips or the dimples at the base of someone’s spine. He came three times before he fell asleep with the moon already waning, and still when he woke to Finnick’s face still flickering on the wall, his sheets were newly sticky.

♦

Cinna’s crisp new boots made little tap-tapping sounds on the marble road through the District One square on his way to school. Classes were cancelled to celebrate the Games, but he’d left his little tin of Tyrian purple in his cubby in the Design Workshop and he didn’t want Indigo to steal it. The glare of high noon sunlight over the shining, pink-veined white surfaces of the Alterior of District One burned Cinna’s eyes and he shaded them quickly, before they watered and made his false eyelashes droop. Now that he’d finally found his face – and how long it took to apply every morning – he wasn’t keen on letting it melt.

Out of habit, he glanced Eastward towards the Demitto, where the marble roads tapered off into red cobblestone and the buildings had simple aluminum walls instead of carved marble. Still blinding, but less beautiful. Cinna had never been into the Demitto, and he’d never really met anyone who lived there – they had their own school and their own hours at the shops and their own dining rooms in the restaurants. No one from the Demitto was trained as a Volunteer or a couturier; they just worked in assistantships and on assembly lines. 

He’d always taken a keen interest in the Demitto kids standing boredly at the Reapings, though. Their names were always called before the top odds Volunteered in. It seemed to Cinna like a silly formality, pulling out their names. Everyone knew they weren’t going to get to play; why give them hope like that? It seemed mean.

As he tap-tapped past the Auric Café, a dark-eyed Demitto waitress’ foot hit a wet spot on the slick marble patio and she slipped, spilling her tray. Half-finished bowls of saffron-yellow soup and picked-upon plates of vibrant green salad shattered on the hard ground. The girl looked up and seemed to catch Cinna’s eyes with her own wide, fearful gaze.

It embarrassed Cinna, and he quickly looked away.

“Shameful,” he heard someone from the café patio comment loudly. “I do so wish Districts were allowed Avoxes. They never make such mistakes.”

Cinna felt his own cheeks go pink beneath the careful layers of white and gold makeup and he ducked his head, hurrying tap-tap-tap down the road. He took solace in cutting through the Cultivation Gardens, always heady with perfume and huge blossoms and ready for beautiful cuttings to be sent to the Capitol at a moment’s notice. A few Demitto day-laborers were repotting a bright yellow sundragon, its petals splashed with fluorescent orange, into an AirMail tub. 

Cinna waved his school badge at the heavy wrought-iron gates and stepped through quickly when the light changed and the gate flashed open. More than one of his classmates had their fingers smashed dawdling in the gate, and he needed to stay deft with a needle.

The Alterior school door was heavy and the marble steps were slippery and his crisp new boots had no traction, so it took Cinna a long minute to get the doors open and he hoped – virulent and acidic – that no one had seen him. The only people who would be at the school during the Games would be angry older Volunteers, upset that someone as young as Pyreight had bested them for the male slot, and Cinna really, really did not want to be caught and shoved headfirst down the toilets today.

Cinna tried to keep his footsteps as silent as possible as he crept through the empty white-walled school. Only the videoscreens, footage bright and fast and eerie as the cameras swept the arena for Tributes in action. The Arena this year had once been a city – a big one, almost as big as the Capitol, it looked like – before the Dark Days, and the rusted-out buildings crawled with kudzu vines and delicate tendrils of rust sending long shadows over the abandoned, cracked cement sidewalks. The sky over the Arena was a streaky, angry gray, and the water that foamed over one side of the decayed city looked angry and black and cold.

Cinna wondered if Finnick Odair was waiting by that water. As long as he survived the next day, he would have a trident to help him. Cinna felt a hot flush down his spine at the thought.

“Fuckin’ Pyreight.” 

Cinna jumped and flattened himself against the wall as two loud, huge Volunteer Eighteens lumbered past him, each carrying a practice dummy bigger than Cinna over his shoulder.

“Can’t even give the Sponsors a show for their money,” whined the other. “Why the fuck would they send an underage Trib with someone like Oxsana? Fuckin’ waste.”

“I’d waste Oxsana,” chuckled the first Eighteen lowly. “And then I’d bash her stupid fuckin’ head in.”

“Only way to do it!” crowed his buddy, grinning as he shouldered his way into the Gymnasium.

Cinna waited until the heavy door had shut completely before darting out from his hiding space and tap-tap-tapping fast down the hall to the Design Workshop. He grabbed his paint tins and pocketed them quickly, looking over his shoulder before slipping down the hall again.

When he reached the big videoscreen in the main corridor, he stopped flat, his feet sliding out from under him on the smooth marble and sending him down hard enough to jar his teeth in his head when he hit the floor.

Pyreight and Oxsana and the huge boy from Two had caught Finnick Odair.

Pyreight was kneeling on Finnick’s chest as Finnick’s feet caught Oxsana just below the ribs and his strong swimmer’s legs propelled her back hard enough that she coughed up a great bubble of biley blood and was down for the count – “But not dead!” assured Claudius Templesmith excitedly – and one of Finnick’s thumbs found the corner of Boy Two’s eye and started prying.

Cinna could hardly watch. He hated when they played with eyes.

The boy howled and reeled back, clutching his face and kicking Finnick in the head.

The crescent blade of Pyreight’s knife sank into the soft slice between two of Finnick’s ribs, low on his long, brown side.

Finnick lay, unmoving, on the cement jungle ground, blood flowing from his wound in bright red rivulets like the cochineal in Cinna’s #F5 paint tin. 

Pyreight snickered winsomely and jumped off Finnick’s chest. 

“C’mon, you baby,” he chided Boy Two. “He’ll be dead soon enough. Let’s go.”

“Fucker took out my eye,” seethed Boy Two. “Let me gut him.”

“Don’t bother,” Pyreight said, waving a dismissive hand. “If he’s not dead in ten minutes, Oxsana’ll get him. Or a mutt will.”

“What’ja wanna do about her?” asked Boy Two.

Pyreight smiled. “Leave her. She’s boring as shit.”

Boy Two raises his remaining good eyebrow. “Are you sure? Could be fun.”

Pyreight scoffed and started jogging off towards one of the rusted-out hulls of a spiraling skyscraper. “Nah… she just lays there when she’s conscious, too.”

Boy Two gave Finnick a last good kick and caught up with Pyreight in two strides.

Cinna sat unmoving on the ground, fingers stuffed in his mouth in horror as he stared at Finnick Odair, beautiful naked Finnick Odair, _call me anything as long as you call me Victor_ with that _smile_ , bleeding and dying and pale on the ground.

And then Finnick’s eyes opened. Alert. Hurting. Fathomless ocean green.

He sat up, slowly, slowly, and pressed a hand to the wound in his side. He looked around. Saw Oxsana still lying in a puddle of her own sick a few feet away. Crawled over, took a penknife from his boot, and cut off a chunk of her long, silken, blonde hair extensions.

Finnick braided three almost-invisible strands together with one hand, the ends clutched in his straight white teeth, and pulled a thin bone awl from his pack.

Cinna gagged on his own fingers as Finnick Odair stitched his wound shut with Oxsana’s hair. When the bleeding had stopped, Finnick turned, nonchalant as anything, and jammed the awl into Oxsana’s jugular.

He was still walking away when the cannon sounded and his first parachute, a tiny bottle of alcoholic antiseptic, fell.

Cinna walked the most direct route home, his boots tap-tapping fast all the way, all too aware that in his fright he’d smeared his red lipstick all over his chin and smudged the white-gold base onto his cuffs. He looked a mess. When he pushed open the door, he immediately wished he could duck out unnoticed again.

Cressida and her camera crew were there, already interviewing his mother. With Finnick Odair in the mix this year, Cinna had completely forgotten the annual humiliation of these interviews. So what if his mother had been a Victor? It was so long ago, it would be easier to let everyone forget, yet Cressida insisted on these profiles every year. As though past Games would ever matter as much as the Games on now, with the technology getting better and better and the Arenas getting more creative… the old highlights were just embarrassing. So cliché.

And… it just reminded _everyone_ that Persephone was really from District Eleven, of all places. That Cinna was half – 

_Well_ , he thought uncomfortably, squirming. She didn’t really look _much_ different from a lot of the Demitto workers. He’d always thought it was pretty, really, before the cocoa of her skin sallowed out to a burnished gold with the morphling. That was before Father urged her over to opillium instead. All it did was leach the color out of her irises, and that could be Remade so much more easily.

“Cinna, is that you?” 

He always noticed his mother’s slanted Eleven accent so much more during the Games. Sometimes he locked himself into his bathroom and practiced saying certain words – “grains, paints, growing, knowing” – over and over to make sure he wasn’t saying them like her.

He loved his mother. More than anyone in the world. It was just Panem, it was just District One. Blending in was important.

“Yes,” Cinna called back, hastily adjusting his cuffs. “Don’t film me!”

“We won’t, Cinna. The viewers don’t need to see you,” Cressida said, sticking her head around the doorjamb. She smiled at him. “I like the face.”

He covered his smeared lips with his hands. “Don’t make fun. I look terrible.”

Cressida shook her bald head. “You don’t. Now come give me a kiss, kiddo.”

Cinna dutifully tapped over to the elegant sitting room and kissed both of Cressida’s cheeks, and then his mother’s. He nodded to the camera equipment.

“Did I ruin your shot? I’m sorry. I forgot you’d be here today.”

“No, we hadn’t started yet.” Cressida smiled. “I hear you chose the Sponsorship this year.”

Cinna nodded, the image of Pyreight and the Two boy pinning Finnick down still fresh in his mind. “The boy from Four.”

Persephone’s dull eyes flickered. “Did you see what happened to him?”

Cinna nodded. “He stitched himself up, though. With Oxsana’s hair. That was really smart… I wouldn’t have thought to do it.”

Cressida inclined her head towards Persephone. “You did something similar in your Games, if I recall. Stitched up your partner’s arm with some marsh grass, didn’t you?”

Persephone nodded shortly. “It didn’t seem to do much good. Let’s hope the Four boy’s hand was steadier than mine.”

“Did Father finish the trident yet?” Cinna asked, letting Persephone brush his mussed hair out of his eyes. “It’ll get to the Arena soon, right?” He paused. “It’s just that Finnick’s awfully smaller than that boy from Two, and the Two boy’s really mad.”

Persephone smiled thinly. “Cacus finished forging it this morning to your father’s design. It should reach the Arena before tomorrow morning.” 

Cinna smiled and kissed her cheek again. “Thank you, mama.”

“Cinna, do you want to stay and watch your mom’s interview?” Cressida asked, lifting her camera to her shoulder.

Cinna bit his lip. “No, if that’s okay. I should let Blake back inside, I put him on the balcony before I left so he wouldn’t make a mess.”

“Of course it’s okay, sweetheart,” Persephone said. She patted Cinna’s arm. “You don’t need to hear about my Games again. Unpleasant business.”

Cinna blushed. “It’s not that, it’s just – ”

“No, Cinna, it’s alright. I don’t want you to listen.” Persephone’s hand was a few shades darker than her son’s warm wrist. She patted his arm again. “Go let poor Blake inside. I hope you’ve been paying attention to him.”

“I am,” Cinna assured her. He nodded to Cressida. “It was nice to see you again.”

Cressida’s lips quirked. “Always a pleasure, kiddo. Druscilla told me that you don’t have a bad eye. Keep it up and maybe we can work together someday.”

Cinna flushed and nodded, covering his smeared makeup again and darting out of the room, slick new shoes sliding on the marble hall. 

Upstairs in his bedroom, he opened the wide balcony doors and Blake pounced into the room, happy to be off the small balcony fortified with a force field.

“Hey!” Cinna laughed, his hands rubbing through Blake’s soft, white ruff, “Stop licking my makeup off!” Blake just yawned spectacularly in his face. “Phew, Blake, you stink.”

Cinna pushed the mass of fur off his midsection and pulled Blake over to the videoscreen, settling down to watch more of the Games. Certainly the cameras would be on Finnick like glue after that spectacular show this morning. Blake stretched out on his back plaintively and Cinna rolled his eyes, rubbing the downy fur on Blake’s pink belly.

The footage from the Arena was deceptively quiet, following a herd of chittering armadillo mutts across the bridge spanning the treacherous black river snaking through the dead city. Most of the screen was full of Persephone’s face, smiling graciously and absently as she answered Cressida’s kind questions.

_Of course, you won the notorious 51 ST Hunger Games, the infamous ‘laser steppe’ Arena. It’s the only time in Games history that Tributes from District Eleven and District Twelve won consecutive years. Do you think you learned anything from Haymitch Abernathy that helped you in your own Games strategy?_

Persephone laughed, a fruity, full-throated laugh that hurt Cinna’s heart: it was not the laugh she had for his sleepy hair in the morning or when Blake knocked her down in the hallway with slobbery kisses. That was a high, reedy laugh like startled birds taking off from the Cultivation Garden fence in the morning. This was an actress’ laugh.

“I think I did learn from Haymitch – I learned to do the opposite of what he had! What Haymitch really did was play against type for Twelve; he had that charisma, he stood out. I just tried to stick close to what I knew. If they can’t catch you, they can’t kill you. I really just wanted to blend in and go unnoticed, and I think that helped me succeed.” 

Claudius Templesmith’s face burst onto the screen in another quadrant, the heralding trumpets of a turn in the Games announcing his interruption. “Cressida, Persephone, we’re going to cut you short and pan over to the river, where Lobelia Peat from Twelve appears to have been snared – !”

Hanging upside-down from a pylon beneath the bridge, the big, dark girl from Twelve who had punched Finnick the day before struggled. She was caught in a net of spongy woven marsh grass, her square face darkening purple. The entire riverscape was dark: brackish purples and poisoned black and rusty red.

Finnick Odair stepped out from beneath the broken bridge, a bright spot of bronze. The little penknife from his boot cut her open easily – a long black line from her chin to the bulky waist of her uniform pants – and Cinna remembered that he’d learned once that Four had terrible huge creatures in the water that sometimes got caught in nets and had to be gutted lest they attack the fishermen. He marveled at how _sure_ Finnick Odair was with killing. He wondered if Finnick had ever caught one of those ugly creatures in a net just like this.

Nothing could harm Finnick Odair. Cinna was sure of it. Nothing scared him. 

The girl’s cannon blasted in the sky and Cinna watched as bright gold Finnick strode away from the gray body hanging over the black river. Everything in this Arena looked the same, cold and hard, except Finnick.

Cinna had noticed Finnick Odair because Finnick stood out.

At half-past three in the morning, long after the evening’s wrap-up montage, when the majority of Games coverage was Templesmith’s banter with the mentors and a few key Sponsors, Cinna’s comm alarm buzzed. 

He rolled over groggily, rubbing his eyes, and the light from the videoscreen fell across his bed.

He sat up like a bolt, suddenly wide awake, the blood in his veins humming until he felt shaky and floating and like a wisp of light about to zoom around the ceiling:

Finnick Odair huddled beneath the rusted platform of an old elevated train from the Dark Days, its windows jagged and broken. Finnick still had no shirt and looked thinner and paler than he had in the opening ceremonies, but his slender chest was freckled with dirt and sweat in a way that Cinna found _profoundly_ and unexpectedly beautiful. He wondered if that’s how Finnick always looked at home in Four. Although he thought, vaguely, that he remembered learning that there was no soil in Four, only sand, like the glassworkers used.

What a strange place.

The row of silver-white stitches along Finnick’s side seemed to glow in the dim light and the skin there was red and angry, but healing. The bruises beneath his eyes were dark and frightening; one of his hands sported bloody knuckles from a dust-up with the Twelve girl; his wild, bronze hair stood up like a flame.

The huge silver parachute drifted down and landed near Finnick’s knees.

His brow furrowed. “For me?”

Cinna mouthed the words the way Finnick said them, tasting the famous boy’s voice on his tongue. _Furr mey?_

“Of course it’s for you,” Cinna whispered to the screen, shifting forward on his knees until his nose was almost pressed to the glass. He shuddered as his cold hand slipped into his pajama bottoms. “Of course it’s for you.”

Finnick unwrapped the parcel carefully, tying its twine around his wrist like a braided bracelet. He smiled down at it and Cinna’s heart thumped _he’s wearing me, he’s wearing me, he’s wearing me_.

“Please like it,” he whispered, his lips cry as he watched Finnick Odair peel back the silver wrappings. “Please like me.” 

Cinna came over his hand with a soft, surprised sound at the look on Finnick Odair’s face the moment he saw the gold trident.

It was beautiful, to be sure. Lightweight, unbreakable steel veneered in 24-carat gold that shone with a soft, polished, almost self-aware luminescence; every inch of the long shaft etched with swirling lines reminiscent of the sea. The grip was smooth and satiny and perfectly calibrated to counterpoint the length of the arm with the heavy, uneven weight of the three knife-sharp blades.

And sharp they were. Perfectly symmetrical, too, and curved like an ancient lyre or the horns of a fierce bullocerous mutt. The tines alone could spear through a Tribute completely, in one side and out the other.

The gold light of the curved tines was reflected, upside-down, in Finnick Odair’s wide, green eyes. He reached out and lifted the trident carefully, testing its weight, testing his strength. He pushed himself up to his feet in the alley below the train platform, and with a singing rush of music as the gold sliced through the air, tested the balance of the gleaming weapon.

Cinna touched the screen with a laugh caught in the back of his throat, hard again so quickly it almost hurt. “You’re going to win.”

Finnick’s face broke into a stunningly white grin, dimpled and fair. He weighed the trident in his hands again like a treasure. 

The camera zoomed in on his gleeful face and he looked straight into Cinna’s eyes through the lens, his green eyes and soft kohl lashes sincere and warm and melting with gratitude. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, lips pink and full. “I’m so grateful to you. I’m gonna try real hard to win for you ‘cause you believed in me enough to send this beautiful gift.”

“I know you’ll win, Finnick,” Cinna answered, smiling back. “I know you’ll win for me.”

♦

Finnick lorded over the rusted-out wasteland after the trident arrived, trapping and spearing his opponents with a calculated intensity that made even the Gamemakers’ cunning look gentle. One by one – almost District by District – Tributes died by Finnick’s hand and Cinna’s trident.

Twelve. Ten. Nine. Five.

His own District partner, with a caress to her face.

The sickly-skinny boy from Three. Finnick tucked his broken glasses into his pocket after he was dead.

And then there were two Tributes left alive in the Arena.

Cinna’s face felt hot as Pyreight fought against the barbed clinch of the net that held him upside-down over the babbling creek. All of the blood was rushing to Pyreight’s face and those sharp cheekbone implants stood out, white and ugly where they cut against his skin from the inside.

Finnick Odair stepped silently out of the bushes, Cinna’s gold trident shining at his side. The black and red material of his Games costume was tied around his waist and Cinna stared at the jagged row of stitches across Finnick’s side. He wondered if it would leave a terrible scar. He wondered if it hurt. He wondered how his skin there would taste.

Finnick’s nostrils flared for just a moment before he looked up into the leaves of the tree, right at the concealed camera, and grinned, tossing his wild hair. In the corner of the screen, a replay of Pyreight and Oxsana tackling Finnick to the ground and stabbing him flared up, Claudius Templesmith’s commentary droning on about ‘revenge’ and ‘looks like he’s really getting that last laugh!’

Cinna clenched his fists and remembered how Pyreight had burnt his clothes after Games Education. He felt the blow against face when Pyreight punched him last March. He watched the blade of Pyreight’s crescent knife bite into the long, smooth stretch of Finnick Odair’s tan skin.

“Kill him,” Cinna whispered to the screen. “Kill him for me, Finnick.”

And Finnick did. The tines of the trident lodged deep under Pyreight’s ribs and blood burbled from the bully’s mouth, running down over his sharp white cheekbones and into his nose and his eyes and the close-up replay showed droplets coating his eyelashes like an oilslick. Cinna watched Pyreight die because _he_ had sent Finnick that trident.

Finnick dipped the bloodied tines of Cinna’s gold trident into the black water, anointing them with crystal-clear poison and washing the red away. 

The Hovercraft whirred down over the black river and loaded Pyreight’s corpse into a silver sling.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Victor of the 65TH Hunger Games… Finnick Odair, District Four!” boomed Claudius Templesmith.

A close-up of Finnick’s Tribute portrait, beaming in front of the Panem flag, unfurled across the top of the videoscreen as the real Finnick, gloriously alive at this moment, leaned against his trident staff on the muddy, rocky riverbed. The blond-stitched scar on his side oozed. His eyes were ringed in black smudges. A spatter of drying blood smeared his arms. 

“As you are all aware, Mister Odair is the youngest _ever_ Victor of the Hunger Games, quite a feat – ”

Cinna realized that he was pressed up against the screen again, watching Finnick board the ladder of the hovercraft. He twisted, feeling hollow and full at once. Finnick was alive because Cinna had chosen him. But now Cinna would never see him again – not unless he mentored, and Four had enough Victors that he wouldn’t be needed, not right away.

“Are we live with Finnick Odair?” asked Caesar Flickerman jovially on the screen.

Beside him, Claudius grinned and the screen split in two. “I do have confirmation that we have a live hookup to the hovercraft satellite and the 65TH Hunger Games Victor, Finnick Odair of District Four, is conscious, coherent, and eager to speak with us!”

“Finn, darling, are you there?” asked Caesar, almost swooning into the camera lens.

Finnick’s face came up on the screen: still tired and dirty, but already looking healthier as an IV pumped morphling and nutrients into his arm. “I am here, believe it or not.”

“Your first statement as Victor! How exciting! What do you have to tell Panem first, young Finnick?”

Finnick smiled, almost bashfully, and Cinna felt tears pour down his face. “Well, I guess first I should say that I’m really very glad to be going home. And, ah, I really love my family and I am really looking forward to seein’ them soon, and I’m gonna work extra-hard to make up for the time I was gone? And – ” he laughed shallowly. “And ah, I really have to thank again um, the person who sent me the trident. I would not be here without it. I guess without you? Ah, so – thanks…”

Finnick Odair’s wide green eyes drifted shut as the morphling drip ran thick and amber through the tube.

Cinna shuddered, tears blurring his eyes, and wiped his nose on his sleeve – lamé cuffs bedamned. “You’re welcome.”

♦

Three days later, a subdued Cinna Midas turned fourteen. Persephone emerged from her bedroom in a bright, clear happiness that spelled that the Games were over, and she kissed Cinna’s hair and spoiled him before breakfast, a new bolero jacket with luminescent scales and matching boots to wear for his birthday dinner.

Father would be coming home for dinner.

Cinna knew that meant that his mother’s joy would be short-lived, but he was glad to see her smile. The Games were hard for her.

Sometimes it seemed like life was hard for her, but he couldn’t understand why. She was a Victor. She was married to _the_ Glamor Midas. And even aside from his legacy and his money, she had her own – she was still a Victor, and Cinna knew how nice those houses in the Victor’s Village were. He’d seen the clothes that Cashmere and Gloss wore in the village, hand-stitched and perfectly formed and made just for them by Hemant and Brabantio.

“Simoens,” Persephone had smiled as she draped the bolero over Cinna’s shoulders. “But someday your designs will be more beautiful.” She tapped his nose. “And even more expensive.”

Cinna flushed. “Thank you, Mama.”

They went to the outdoor café for lunch, despite the looks Persephone always got there. Cinna resolved to hide his embarrassment for the sake of confit lemon groosling, and because – it was so rare for his mother to agree to go outside at all. She said that it was claustrophobic in One.

After lunch, Persephone’s smile faded and she retired to her room to dress for dinner and reapply her face for the guests. Cinna hung his jacket and took Blake out to the yard, letting him paw at the statues and slide across the slippery marble on his big paws.

The sun had almost finished setting when the comm buzzer in the yard announced that Cinna’s father and his friends had returned from the Capitol to herald the end of the Games and, to a lesser extent, Cinna’s birthday.

Cinna rushed up to his room to stow Blake in his run and change back into his Simoens bolero, boots, and check that his face was painted on cleanly after an afternoon in the yard. He raced down the stairs and skidded a little on the slick floor just as one of the Demitto night-maids opened the front door and Glamor’s guests came pouring through.

“Cinnabar,” said his father sharply, holding out a hand. Cinna shook it. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you, Father.” He forced a small smile onto his face, trying to keep it as manly – and as little boyish – as he knew how.

His smile for the next man through the door was real.

Coriolanus Snow patted Cinna’s cheek genially. “Happy birthday, Cinna. I’m sorry there are no more Games for you to enjoy today... but I think you chose a lovely winner, don’t you?”

Cinna smiled, feeling a little hollow, and shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t really like the Games so much as the opening ceremonies. I like the costumes. The designers this year were very good.”

He didn’t say, _they made me think._

Lanus smiled at Cinna’s words before snapping his fingers and directing his Avoxes to carry in the huge sides of luxury meats for the meal and Lanus’ luggage for the night.

The rest of the coterie – the silversmith, Lupa, and the diamondcutter, Adamantina; Plutarch Heavensbee, the muttations coordinator; Cressida and her film crew. Claudius and his wife, Annika; Caesar Flickerman.

Cinna himself didn’t really have any guests. There was no one at school that he really wanted to invite, and the only person he really wanted to see –

He was probably on a train winding south towards Four.

The food was at once richer and blander than Cinna would have liked – everything made to Lanus’ taste, by his chefs, and using many components he’d brought with him from the Capitol cache; “a politician can’t ever be too careful about what he eats, Cinna, remember that.” Cinna picked at his chicken… a strange meat; no flavor, too pale, a specific delicacy of the Presidency. Cinna couldn’t really see why. The talk around him chattered about the financial logistics of the city Arena and political factions that he knew nothing about. He may as well have not been there at all.

He was just wondering if anyone at the table remembered either his birthday or his presence when his father stood to make a toast.

“Well, Cinnabar Midas, you are a _very_ lucky boy. The Capitol has always been good to our family – ” Glamor nodded in deference to President Snow at his side – “and we are always grateful for the generosity and mercy they choose to show us. And you get to reap the rewards tonight, dear boy, with a very special birthday gift all the way from the Capitol.”

Cinna looked up, all round eyes and surprise. A new drafting desk? Silk from District Eight? Maybe he could shadow Druscilla again like he did last year; he didn’t think he got in the way much…

“Thank you,” he breathed obediently, inclining his head to Lanus.

Coriolanus Snow smiled indulgently. “My Avoxes were instructed to deliver it to your room.” _So no shadowing Druscilla._ “I do hope you make full use of it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cinna said respectfully, wondering when he would be allowed to leave the table and its mind-numbingly boring adult talk of politics and promotions and Plutarch’s speechmaking about Games theory.

He sat patiently, though, chiming in where appropriate with _hmm_ s and _oh, yes_ es for another hour as the food dwindled. Persephone eventually leaned over and stroked his hair back from his face and kissed his forehead, giving him permission with a nod to leave the table.

Cinna barely paused to kiss her cheek before tap-tap-tapping his way up the stairs, charting out costumes for Four: seashells and skin and sunshine, silk and pearls and drops of diamond. He could learn to pleat in fans if there was enough new silk, or mix the exact green of Finnick’s eyes if there were new paints, or –

Cinna skidded to a stop in his bedroom doorway, holding onto the white frame so he didn’t fall flat on his face. The nearly-naked boy sitting on Cinna’s bed looked up, blushed bright red, and dropped his head. He turned the golden trident over in his hands. 

“You – you – y-you’re Finnick Odair,” Cinna said, shocked. “I – I sent you your trident.”

Finnick looked at his feet. “Thanks.”

Cinna nodded. “You’re welcome.” He paused. This was harder than he thought it would be. There didn’t seem to be enough words to say – _you’re brave? You’re beautiful? I think I’m in love with you and you have no idea who I am? Was it exciting? Was it terrible? Are you going to kill me? Because I might let you, Finnick Odair._

“It’s my birthday today,” Cinna offered. “I’m fourteen.”

Finnick Odair smiled. “It’s my birthday, too. But I’m fifteen.” His smile faltered. “If the Games had gone on another week, I wouldn’t be the youngest Victor.”

Cinna didn’t know what to say. “That’s true.” He paused, low and painful, his heart aching with all of the things he wanted to say and to do and having none of the courage. “Do you want some cake?”

Finnick blinked. “You have cake? At your _house_?”

Cinna nodded. “It’s a birthday cake.” He paused again. “Don’t you have birthday cake in District Four?”

Finnick Odair shook his head. “I’ve never had cake.” 

“Oh.” Cinna stared at him, trying to find the line along his side that was stitched shut with Oxsana’s blonde silk hair.

“I’d like some cake,” Finnick said, with the raw, hungry undertone in his voice that Cinna associated with the Tributes from lesser Districts in their interviews – Elevens and Twelves and Sixes. Not Victors from Four.

Cinna nodded and jumped up. He touched the buzzer for the intercom in the wall. “Can we get some cake?”

The fliptable opened and two huge slices of pure white cake with a soft frozen filling and fluffy gold icing appeared.

Finnick’s eyes were wide. “That’s all for us?”

“There’s more downstairs,” Cinna said, picking up the plates with shaking hands and hoping against all hope that he didn’t drop cake on Finnick Odair. _Although maybe he could lick it off – no,_ no _, too hard to hide in these pants…!_ “I mean, if you like it and want more cake later.”

Finnick looked bewildered, staring from the cake to Cinna and back again. He blinked and shook once like he was flicking off water and seemed to gather himself.

Cinna set the plate of cake down on Finnick’s knee. 

Finnick’s eyes narrowed as he reached out to rub his thumb across Cinna’s cheek, smudging the painstaking shading of pink and coral and gold shimmer along his cheekbones. “Why are you wearing this?”

Cinna blinked at him and mouthed wordlessly. _Finnick Odair was touching him._

Finnick laughed and shook his head, looking at the stripe of pink on his thumb and working it off against the rest of his fingers. “I’ll never understand why everybody west of Eight and north of Four doesn’t want to look like _people_ anymore. I feel like I’m talking to a doll.”

“I can wash it off,” Cinna offered, reaching up to touch his own carefully manicured face in dismay. Before Finnick could answer, he’d spun on his heel and rushed into his bath, catching the door at the last second to keep it from slamming.

Cinna’s heart pounded up against his ribs, jostling around the rich meal he’d eaten and making him feel clammy and shaky and sick.

Finnick Odair was in his bedroom.

Finnick Odair was sitting on his bed.

Finnick Odair thought he didn’t even look like a _person_. 

Cinna leaned up against his cold marble counter, trying to remember his mother’s breathing exercises – in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose – and turned the silver taps on his sink, letting the water run in cold.

He took a last look at the white lacquer, the gold shimmer and rose striped blush, long blue-and-black peacock eyelashes and sharp stripe of a red mouth, took a deep breath, and splashed cold water on his face. His eyelashes looked like spiders skittering down the drain.

By the time his face was cleaned and conditioned, Cinna thought he looked about – well, thirteen years old. Younger, even. A First Schooler. And Finnick Odair was still sitting in his room – _oh, please, oh, please_ – waiting for him.

He brushed his bangs out of his face, took a last sullen look in the mirror at his glowing pale face and too-narrow green eyes, and ducked back into his room.

“That’s so much better,” Finnick said, looking up from where he was picking at the tines of his trident. “Now you look like a real boy.” 

Cinna made a noise like an upset duck and brushed his bangs over his face again, hoping that his blush didn’t give him away.

“So your dad’s the Mayor?” Finnick asked, swinging his feet as he demolished the second slice of cake.

“Yeah,” Cinna said, shrugging one shoulder. _Look nonchalant. Look cool._ “But he’s mostly a goldsmith. The Capitol does most of the mayor stuff for him. Trials and that.”

“Are you going to be a goldsmith?” Finnick asked, sucking frosting off his fingers.

Cinna smiled and shook his head. “No. I want to be a couturier.”

“What’s that?”

“A fashion designer. I want to style for the Games and for runway shows and I want to have my own shop in the Capitol and make dresses that everyone in Panem wants to buy,” Cinna said with relish. “That’s why I have the dress forms.” He pointed.

“Is that what those are for?” Finnick asked. He ate some crumbs off his thumb greedily, sweeping more off the plate before he’d even swallowed. “I thought they might’ve just been big dolls or somethin’.”

“I don’t play with dolls,” Cinna said indignantly. “I’m not a girl.”

“Well, you wear pink make-up and eyelashes.” Finnick said looking up. His eyes were wide. “I don’t know.”

Cinna frowned and ran the back of his hand over his bare face. “Everyone who’s anyone wears make-up. That’s what Caesar says in the magazines.”

Finnick frowned. “I was so mad when they made me wear it for the interviews and stuff. It’s itchy and it smells bad. And I looked stupid in those costumes.”

“No, you didn’t,” Cinna breathed, “You looked – I mean, you… I just – ” He took a deep breath. “You didn’t look stupid, is all. You looked really good.”

The tops of Finnick’s ears turned red. “Well, if it got me that trident and I get to go home… I guess it was okay.”

Cinna’s head wobbled in an absurd nod. “Do you – um, do you want more cake?”

Finnick looked over and grinned. “Yeah. Is there really more?”

“Yeah, of course. There’s a whole cake.” Cinna pressed the button for more and the table slid open, revealing two more slices. Finnick took both. “Did you really never have cake in District Four?”

Finnick shook his head, mouth full. “Uh-uh. But my mom makes really good lemaranja candy, for our birthdays and on Reaping Day. I didn’t get to have any this year, though. But maybe we’ll have it when I get home.”

Cinna smiled. “I bet your family will be happy you won.”

Finnick’s smile drooped a little. He swallowed. “Maybe. I hope they didn’t watch me, though. I wish _no one_ watched me.” His gemerald green eyes darkened and his fork dragged listlessly through the cake on his plate. “I just want to go home and… I want to buy a boat. With my winnings.” He smiled. “With a big deck to lay out on. And a cabin with windows. And I want orange sails.”

“Doesn’t your family have a boat?” Cinna asked, staring at the curve of Finnick’s lip when he smiled and just how _big_ his hands were as he waved them around, sketching a boat in the air. There were calluses on the heels of his palms and all along each of his fingers. Cinna had never considered that. Calluses.

“Yeah,” Finnick said. “But I want my own, so I can go out with my friends and like girls and stuff. My parents’ boats are for working, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to be a fisherman now. But I hope so. I’m not really good at anything else.”

“Your parents are fishermen?” 

Cinna wrinkled his nose. He’d assumed Finnick was a Volunteer like most Victors from Four, whose parents worked in pearl refinery or directed shipping to Nine for inspections. The photos he’d seen in his textbooks of fishermen always looked… rough.

Finnick laughed. “’Course. Everyone in Four is a – ” He caught off suddenly, cake falling to the floor. Finnick blanched and scrambled to his feet, backing up over the length of the bed, balancing on the prow of the headboard like he could scale the wall and keep climbing away. “Mutt!” He choked, pointing. “There’s a – in your _house_ , a mutt – get away – !”

Cinna looked over to the corner and laughed. “That’s not a mutt! That’s Blake. He’s my pet.” He walked over and knelt, circling his arms around Blake’s huge, soft neck.

Finnick’s eyes were round as saucers. “What is it?”

“A white tiger,” Cinna said, petting the thick, warm fur around Blake’s ruff. “Plutarch gave him to me for my birthday last year. He rescued him from District Ten.” 

Finnick Odair didn’t climb down from the headboard. “There are no animals like that that are real. They’re all mutts.”

“He’s real,” Cinna said indignantly. “He’s a Presidential Bengal. Mutts aren’t edible. He wouldn’t have been in Ten if he were a mutt.” He tried out a smile at Finnick Odair. “He’s nice. See, his teeth are filed down and everything. Get down.”

Finnick gingerly stepped down from the headboard, but kept his trident clutched in his hands. “Why did you get it?”

Cinna shrugged and rubbed Blake’s ruff. “I don’t know. Plutarch just said his name’s Blake and I could have him.”

“What does he do?” Finnick asked, eying the tiger warily.

Cinna shrugged. “I don’t know. Eats and sleeps, mostly.”

“No, I mean, how does he help your dad make gold?” Finnick asked, looking over the trident.

“He doesn’t,” Cinna shook his head. “He’s just my pet. Don’t you have pets?”

“Not really,” Finnick said, looking ruefully to the cake on the floor. “Mags, she’s my mentor, she has a dog to watch over her ‘cause she’s really old. And my grandma does, too, and she lives in my house, so I guess I got a dog. But it doesn’t have a name or nothing.”

“Well, Blake is really just a big cat,” Cinna said. “He can’t hurt you.” He paused. “Nothing could hurt you.”

Finnick shook his head. He pulled his knees up to his chest. “I got a Remake after the Games, but it still hurts where that guy stabbed me.”

“His name was Pyreight,” Cinna said, patting Blake’s flank and guiding him out of the room. “He burned my clothes once at school after Games education. But you killed him with my trident.” He smiled. 

Finnick pulled at his lip, his eyes faraway. “Well, I guess I’m glad he wasn’t nice.” 

“He wasn’t nice at all,” Cinna agreed. “Thanks for killing him for me.”

Finnick’s head jerked up. He looked puzzled and his mouth opened and shut, floundering. Then his eyes narrowed and he began to laugh. “That’s – that’s a good one.”

Cinna blinked, confused, but smiled back anyway and clambered up onto the bed again beside Finnick. Finnick’s head fell back as he laughed and laughed, raucous and raw, and Cinna took a deep breath and put his hand on Finnick’s knee.

Finnick fell abruptly silent and looked to Cinna with the reflexes of a gladiator straight from combat. “What are you doing?”

Cinna blinked. “I – ”

“Look, I’m – thanks for the trident, but… and the cake, I mean, but I’m – ” Finnick’s eyes narrowed. “Do you like… like boys?”

Cinna squeaked and pulled his hand back, burnt. 

Finnick curled his knees up to his chest again and looked out towards the balcony window, Blake the white tiger prowling back and forth on the pink-veined marble.

“Are you leaving?” Cinna asked finally, after the crush of silence became unbearable.

Finnick shook his head. “No. President Snow said we were staying here tonight.”

“Oh.”

Outside the windows, Blake’s claws clicked against the marble, his thick fur hushing against the cold glass when he slid on the glossy surface.

“Is that why you sent the trident?” Finnick asked finally, not looking at Cinna. “You thought I’m – that I was… too?” 

“I don’t know,” Cinna mumbled. “I sent it ‘cause you looked… I don’t know. I just wanted you to win.”

Finnick Odair nodded again, still looking at his feet.

“Do you want some pajamas?” Cinna asked finally, feeling deflated and aching and more embarrassed than he knew had been possible before tonight. 

Finnick nodded.

Cinna got up slowly and pulled a set of striped pajamas from his armoire. He handed them to Finnick without looking at him.

“I’m not gonna – you know,” he spluttered. “Try anything.”

Finnick shook his head hurriedly. “No, I know. I don’t think you’re… you know, that you’d do that to me. It’s just… it’s been a long couple of months.”

Cinna bit his lip and looked at the floor. Finnick Odair’s hand reached out and gently patted Cinna’s arm. 

“It’s okay. If it helps, I think you have great taste…”

Cinna glanced up and there, for a second, was a flash of the smug, grinning, gorgeous boy who’d charmed his way into winning: lopsided grin, defiant sparkle in his ocean-green eyes, wild waves of bronze hair. 

And Cinna was wretchedly in love with that boy, so he smiled back.

♦

“Did you have a nice night with Finnick, dear?” asked Persephone, smiling at Cinna over the little embossed chest of opillium paraphernalia.

Cinna grinned bashfully and nodded. “I did, Mama. He’s mostly really nice.”

Persephone’s smile was thin and runny, like it was painted on so long ago that it had faded. “That’s very good, sweetheart. Coriolanus will be so glad to hear that.” She patted Cinna’s clean cheek. “Go put on your face, Cinna. Time to look presentable.” 

Later, when the curtains were all drawn to keep out the blinding glare of the noon sun reflecting off tons of polished stone outside, Cinna leaned against the cold marble post of his parents’ enormous bed, watching his mother pack her bags. He let the old stone leach the sticky summer heat from the back of his neck. She hadn’t yet styled her hair for the trip, and it fell down her back in a long, soft coil. It had one gentle gray streak beneath her ear, and Cinna felt sad and strange that his mother could ever get old.

“Mama?” he asked, tilting his head to cool the other side of his face. “Isn’t Eleven awfully… poor?”

Persephone looked up from her bags. “It is. Not everyone is as fortunate as your father and his friends, Cinna.”

“I know,” Cinna said, thinking of Finnick’s words about his parents’ weeks at sea on a smelly boat. “But why do you go back? It can’t be nice there.”

Persephone smiled and sat down on the bed, blowing cool air across her son’s sweaty neck. “It’s nice because it’s home. It’s very beautiful there, too. Different than it is here. The peacharines are in season now and all of the air will smell sweet… and the trees are so pretty, with pink flowers and fruit. And it’s so much sweeter before Nine processes it.” Her eyes flickered. “When I was a girl we would eat it right off the tree, so ripe you got juice all down your chin. And the corn is taller than the eye can see, it’s amazing…”

Cinna smiled. “It sounds nice.” He paused. “Do you like living here?”

Persephone blinked. She smiled at Cinna and swept his long bangs from his face. “I love you, and I am happy living wherever you are.” She patted his cheek and stood again, her skirts swishing as she headed back to her closet. “That’s what matters.”

Cinna sighed, shifting. He watched as she smoothed the mulberry silk of a day dress into her bags.

“Can I come with you?” Cinna asked suddenly. 

Persephone looked up, her mouth a round ‘O’ of surprise. “Oh – sweetheart – you know you can’t leave the District yet, don’t you?”

“Lanus would let me,” Cinna said, barreling onwards. “If Father asked him. Would you want me to come with you? If I could?”

Persephone smiled sadly. “Why would you even want to come to Eleven, sweetheart? You hate the heat and the trip is so long, and you wouldn’t be able to bring your drafting desk.”

“I want to see the flowers,” Cinna said, shrugging. “I want to see where you came from. I want to see everywhere in Panem, I think, when I grow up. Because if I want to style for the Games, then I should see the places I’m styling, shouldn’t I?” He paused. “Do your parents live in Eleven still?”

Persephone hesitated. “Yes, they do.”

“Well, I want to meet them,” Cinna said confidently. “They can’t be worse than Grandmatron and Grandfather.”

Persephone’s head snapped up. “My parents are lovely. There are no kinder people anywhere in Panem.” She looked inexplicably sad. “I think they _would_ love you. I think you would like them.”

“Then bring me with you,” Cinna asked. “Please?”

Persephone closed her suitcase and kissed his forehead gently. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

She bustled out of the room with the bags, Cinna following her down the long, twisted staircase. 

“What are they like?” he asked, sidestepping the Demitto day-maid. “Your parents.”

Persephone turned. “Why are you so curious all of a sudden, sweetheart?”

Cinna shrugged. “Finnick told me about his family. It’s just different than it is here, isn’t it? In Eleven? It’s different in Four, and they’re even still a Volunteer District. So it must be different in Eleven, too. And… they’re my grandparents, and I’ve never met them. Finnick’s grandparents live with him, in his house.”

Persephone smiled knowingly. “So this is about Finnick?”

Cinna blushed. “I don’t know. No. Not really. He just – he said things that made me think.”

“You seem to have talked to him a lot while he was here,” Persephone said carefully, settling the bag of opillium paraphernalia on top of the rest of her luggage. 

“I guess so,” Cinna said. “He was kind of shy at first. And I was nervous. But it was nice to talk to him, after a while.”

“Is that all you did?” Persephone asked. “Talk to each other?”

“Well, we had cake. And played with Blake.”

Persephone’s lips paled. “Did you tell Coriolanus or your father?”

“No,” Cinna said. “They don’t really ask me things very much. And I don’t want to bother them.” He paused. “You know, two months with only Father around is really boring. Do you really have to go for so long?”

Persephone looked distracted as she turned to the mirrors on the wall and adjusted her betrothal necklace, the dozen garnets in its pendant catching the light. “I go for the summer, Cinna. You know that.” 

Finnick Odair was on broadcast almost every day that year. Every time he was shown, he carried Cinna’s trident, clutched in his palm. It had become a part of him, as much as his lopsided smirk or that wild tangle of bronze hair. As a celebrity judge on The Fashion Games, modeling the creations of all its (lucky, lucky) contestants and holding court over the finale in a tiny scalloped toga lined in iridescent luster, trident resting across his lap. Ringing the opening bell for the Capitol Exchange in painted-on pinstripes and a jaunty cap, trident at his side. 

Commentating for the 66TH Hunger Games, his skin glittering and glistening gold and dotted with tiny seashells, trident in hand. Commanding. Strong. Coaching his girl Tribute, Mehgann something, into a win. 

Finnick Odair was perfect. The Games were so much less interesting without him dominating play, but Cinna clung to his videoscreen all the same, gulping down the little bits of Finnick that he was given, burning with pride that… even if things hadn’t gone as he’d maybe hoped, in his heart of hearts, _he’d met Finnick Odair, and spent a night with him_. Finnick had worn his pajamas.

It was the only pair Cinna wore now. More often than not, he woke up stuck to them.

He knew that he wouldn’t see Finnick again – not unless he made it out of One and into a designing job in the Capitol. 

School was easier without Pyreight. And everyone knew that the Midas goldsmith had made that trident. 

At school, it felt like… he belonged to Finnick, or like Finnick belonged to him. Pyreight had been popular, loved, able to get away with bullying Cinna for years and no one did anything about it, and now he was dead because Cinna had given Finnick the tools for the job. It was like a door had opened and letters spelling ‘Cinna Midas, you can make it back to the Capitol to be his stylist’ shone out.

He had his parents send a gold-plated steel shield in the shape of a gorgon to each of Finnick’s Tributes. He wondered if Finnick realized the craftsmanship from the etching on his trident.

When Finnick grinned into the cameras and gave a little wink of thanks as the parachutes were delivered, Cinna warmed, knowing that Finnick did remember him, and did understand. Those shields were Cinna’s way of saying, _I’m still betting on you_. 

When he pulled Mehgann onto the Hovercraft, she dropped the Midas shield at Finnick’s feet, threw her arms around him, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Finnick had pulled away with a sweetly pitying look and bent to pick up the shield, and Cinna knew, he _knew_ that Finnick meant that he couldn’t kiss her so long as Cinna was thinking of him.

He didn’t care how. Finnick Odair could pity him. That was okay.

Three days later, Cinna opened his bedroom door to find Finnick Odair on his bed again – not sitting awkwardly, examining the tines of a trident, but lounging like he belonged there (and _oh, he belonged there_ ), the trident propped up against the headboard. Cinna stopped short in the door again, taken aback by how much _taller_ Finnick looked now and how perfectly fine-tuned his muscles. Cinna was taller, too, but thought he looked like he’d been stretched out and his muscles and bones hadn’t quite communicated well about the directions they wanted to go. Finnick by contrast was pristine.

“Hi,” Cinna said, standing a little straighter, sweeping his long, brown bangs out of his eyes. “When did you get here?”

Finnick stretched languorously, like all the best muscles were sore in all the best ways. His sunkissed skin slid over the bedclothes. “Just a while ago. I let your tiger outside, I hope that’s okay.”

Cinna nodded, blinking, watching the muscles shift in Finnick’s chest as he ran a huge hand through his wild halo of bronze hair. 

“Is that okay?” Finnick repeated, a little smirk on his lips. His hand slid down his chest to rest low between his hips.

“Yeah,” Cinna sputtered. “Yeah… that’s fine.”

Finnick tilted his head and smiled, his eyes low and dark. “Why are you all the way over there?” He shifted his hips. “Come on over here, you haven’t even properly said hello.”

Cinna stepped over the threshold and smiled timidly back. “I didn’t think you’d – I don’t know what I thought.” He paused. “Um, congratulations on the, um, the girl.”

Finnick looked politely perplexed. “The – oh, of course, Mehgann. Well, she couldn’t have won without your shield, so – congratulations on the girl yourself.” He winked and Cinna felt his cheeks flush hot.

Finnick pushed himself up and sat cross-legged and playful on Cinna’s bedspread. “You’re still so far away. I don’t bite, I’m not Enobaria.” 

He raised an eyebrow and Cinna giggled, nerves pouring out of his throat as he walked to sit on the edge of the bed.

Finnick put his hand on Cinna’s knee, suggestive and hot on the inside of his skinny thigh.

“What are you doing?” Cinna asked, tensing. 

Finnick bit his lip and looked up at Cinna through long, sinfully dark eyelashes. “Don’t you know?”

Cinna’s stomach turned over. “You don’t – you know. You don’t like boys.”

Finnick’s fingers rubbed along the ticklish side of Cinna’s knee. “Maybe I just like you.” He looked up and smiled at Cinna. His pupils were huge and wet. “Come on; let me make up for last year.” 

He licked his lip. 

“I’m only fifteen,” Cinna said, his voice trembling. “I’m not legal for another year.”

Finnick smirked winsomely. “Oh, a year is nothing. And I’m here now.” He pouted. “Don’t you want me? You used to…”

Cinna nodded, heart racing, terrified. “I do. I want you so much.”

Finnick Odair laughed lowly and slung a leg over Cinna’s lap, straddling his waist. “You’re the cutest little thing, you know that?” He flattened a callused hand over Cinna’s spindly chest. “You’re gonna hyperventilate if you don’t calm down a little.”

“I can’t,” Cinna whispered, his hands shaking at his sides.

Finnick’s eyes warmed. “I remember being that nervous.”

“Really?” Cinna asked, swallowing hard. He looked up at Finnick Odair’s perfect, sharp-chiseled face. “I can’t imagine you ever being nervous.”

Finnick closed his eyes and slid his hands down Cinna’s arms, wrapping his fingers around Cinna’s wrists. “Just touch me. Don’t think. It makes it better if you don’t think.” 

Cinna’s pale palm fluttered over the patch of Finnick’s side that hid his brave scar. Cinna stared in wonderment. “I don’t think I can stop thinking about you.”

“You really are sweet,” Finnick Odair murmured winsomely, touching his lips to the bony curve of Cinna’s jaw.

Cinna heard himself babbling embarrassing secrets as Finnick’s sure hands unhooked the intricate frogs of his blue brocade jacket and slipped gold buttons from their holes in the starched shirt beneath. He heard himself telling Finnick all about watching him in broadcast every day, and how he was so jealous of him for meeting everyone on The Fashion Games and how jealous he was of them for getting to dress him. 

He gasped and fell back against the pillows, panting, as Finnick’s mouth followed the path of his hands downwards, over Cinna’s chest and tonguing at Cinna’s skinny hips.

He would never be able to get out of his head the image of Finnick Odair’s wild bronze hair bobbing in his lap. For real. Not in a dream. Not in a fantasy. _Real._

He whimpered when Finnick pulled away and bit at Cinna’s hipbone, slithering back up Cinna’s skinny body.

“Ready?” Finnick sang, low and gravelly in the back of his throat, fingers sliding as Cinna let out a yelp.

“I – you don’t have to – ” Cinna said shakily, arching against Finnick’s hand.

“I do have to,” Finnick hummed, teeth pressing dark imprints into Cinna’s collarbone. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

“It hurts,” Cinna squeaked, hiding his face in Finnick’s shoulder.

“Just relax, baby,” Finnick said smoothly, not stopping. “Don’t you trust me?”

Cinna pressed his mouth into the side of Finnick Odair’s neck, tasting the salt of his sweat and the gently soapy taste of Capitol-treated skin, burning hot against his lips. He could feel Finnick’s pulse. 

“I love you,” he murmured, overwhelmed. “I love you so much, Finnick, you have no idea, I’ve been in love with you since the moment I saw you, and you were so beautiful and strong and brave and I just – I love you, and – ”

“Shhh,” Finnick hushed smoothly, touching the sharp curve of his jaw to Cinna’s lips. “Shhhh, it’s okay.”

“I know,” Cinna wobbled. “I just love you.”

Finnick’s sultry mouth smiled and he ran his thumb over Cinna’s cheek. “I know, baby. I love you, too.”

♦

Persephone’s colorless eyes searched Cinna’s face carefully the next morning as he watched her pack her bags.

“Did you have a nice time with Finnick this year?” she asked, her voice a little higher than usual.

Cinna flushed and knotted his fingers together, biting his lip to hold in all of the whoops of joy that threatened to burst out of him. “He loves me back.”

Persephone looked down into her suitcase. “I’m sure he finds you very kind, sweetheart, because you are, but – ”

“No,” Cinna insisted, looking up from under his lashes. “He loves me. He said it. He said the words right back to me. He loves me.”

His mother didn’t look up. “I’m glad that you’re so happy. He’s just what you wanted.”

Cinna beamed down towards his shoes, toes and fingers and knees all knit together as he tried his damnedest not to combust. “He is.”

Persephone nodded stiffly. “Are you going to ask Father to move him here for you?”

“No,” Cinna said, aghast, “No, he loves it in Four. That’s where his family is. And he’s got all these brothers and sisters and stuff that he takes care of, and I couldn’t ask him to leave them.”

Persephone’s eyes blazed as she clicked her suitcases shut and strode across her room in three long steps. She pulled Cinna’s head down and kissed his forehead hard. 

“You have a good heart, Cinna. Don’t lose that. Please.”

Cinna nodded, baffled, into his mother’s shoulder. “I won’t.” 

Persephone hugged her son tightly for a long time, humming nonsense melodies into his hair. Then she pulled back, her strange, colorless eyes wet, and said, “Why don’t you get Blake and we can all sit in the Cultivation Gardens until it’s time for the train?”

“He’s not allowed back in the Cultivation Garden,” Cinna said, blushing. “On account of how he ate all those nasturtiuraniums.” Her face fell. “But I’ll go with you,” Cinna added quickly. “We can go. I’d love to go with you.”

“Why don’t we just sit in the yard?” Persephone asked, blinking. “Bring Blake down.”

Cinna shrugged. “Okay. I’ll see you outside.” 

Persephone kissed her son’s head again. “I am glad that you’re happy, Cinna. And you deserve to be loved.”

Cinna smiled bashfully again and straightened his cuffs as he ducked out of the room. “Thanks.”

The time while Persephone was away passed as it always did for Cinna: empty mornings of sketching at his drafting desk, empty afternoons of tailoring new outfits for the school year on his dressforms, empty evenings of walking Blake around the yard or reading _The Classic Literature (v. I - IV; Snow)_ or a couture magazine at a corner table at the café. Three times, he very nearly let himself wander off the marble path into the Demitto, but lost his nerve at the last second and scurried back to the familiarity of his own Alterior home, in his own cozy room that reminded him of Finnick Odair at every glance.

So while his mother was in Eleven, Cinna’s nights were spent watching broadcasts to his heart’s content. The Fashion Games. Historical dramas of the atrocities of the Dark Days – mobs of unwashed people marching in the streets, giant silver airships falling out of the sky, weapons that put holes in people from hundreds of feet away. His mother never let him watch those. Gruesome murder reenactment shows – she never liked those, either.

Cinna didn’t know her opinion on the late-night broadcasts, and he didn’t really want to have to ask, but he suspected she wouldn’t approve of those either. He’d never actually gotten up the guts to watch one before – he started giggling and feeling heartsick and guilty as soon as then distinctive opening music began – but tonight was different. Tonight was the ‘acting’ debut of _the_ Finnick Odair.

Late – very late – the broadcast rolled over to a high-budget broadcast, a pornographic story set in the Dark Days when everyone had terrible fashion (Long pants made of blue denim? On _everyone_? What was the point of living?) and there was no Panem, only tiny nation-states in disarray.

Finnick Odair didn’t look horrible in those blue denim pants. On him, they looked –

Cinna sighed and slid his hand down below the covers, already oversensitive from remembering Finnick’s mouth and there it was, on the screen, and anyone in Panem could see it but they couldn’t have it – it was his.

The gold trident rested across a ridiculous settee in the background. Finnick smiled and unzipped the blue denim pants, stepping out of them and smiling roguishly to the camera. He ran his huge hands through his hair and tilted his hips and sighed and… 

Cinna licked his lip, trying to match the pace of his hand to Finnick’s, trying to follow Finnick’s movements so it would be like they were touching each other.

He hadn’t really gotten to do that. Touch Finnick. 

Finnick’s eyes drifted shut as his head fell back, lip caught between his teeth, but the camera panned over him and his green eyes opened and locked on Cinna’s eyes through the videoscreen and Cinna blushed –

And then a woman stepped into the screen. Older. Rounder. Amber-skinned and etched all over with sharp lines, like a segmented insect.

She was a familiar face from Cinna’s fashion magazines. Claudius Templesmith’s wife.

“Finn, darling,” she rasped in her smoke-eaten voice, “Let me finish that for you.”

Finnick smirked and rested his hands on the ledge behind him, offering his hips forward. “Whatever you wanna do.”

Cinna deflated and felt cold and dirty and embarrassed when Annika Templesmith knelt at Finnick’s feet and sucked him into her mouth, letting Finnick piston his hips hard. The line of his muscles and the soft brown sheen of his skin was beautiful, even if Annika was horrific, and if Cinna closed one eye, then –

Well, there was just Finnick again, and that was fine.

But the broadcast was long and surprisingly acrobatic for a woman of Annika’s size, and eventually Cinna gave up on trying to be titillated and settled for a sort of sick, painful settling of curiosity. 

Why was Finnick even doing this? Acting wasn’t his Talent. Poetry was. This wasn’t poetic.

Not at all.

Finnick was above Annika, her round leg over his shoulder as the powerful flat muscles of his back shifted in the unnatural studio light, when she said it.

“I love you, Finn, fuck, I love you, I love you – ”

Finnick’s sultry mouth smiled and he ran his thumb over the woman’s cheek. “I know, baby. I love you, too.” 

The words buzzed in Cinna’s ears like angry metallic whirr, speeding up until it was a sort of mocking song, _IknowbabyIloveyoubabyIloveyouIloveyou_. His stomach hurt. He clicked off the videoscreen, feeling like he was moving through molten lead, and stared at the dull black glow in the silence. 

Cinna cried himself to sleep for three nights in a row.

On the fourth day, he woke up to the filed-down teeth of a bored tiger gnawing at his arm, a head full of grease like he’d never known before, and damp pillow-creases in his face that would take a double-dose of concealer to hide. He pried his arm free, patted Blake’s head, and sat up with a new sort of resolve in the pit of his stomach.

“Father?” he asked timidly, after he was dressed and his face cleared and his gold eyeliner slicked on, “Do you mind if I – I mean, are you busy?”

“I’m always busy, Cinnabar,” Glamor Midas said, examining the setting pins in a gold ring with his loupe. “That’s the mark of a successful man.”

“Yes, sir, I know,” Cinna said politely. “Um, I was just wondering – if you had any pieces for Lanus that he was coming out here to pick up. Soon.”

Glamor smiled knowingly and set down the loupe. “You enjoyed Finnick Odair, eh?”

Cinna blushed purple, but kept his head high and tried to look on steadily. “Yes, sir, I suppose that is what I am actually… asking. But I know that his place is in Four until he’s called on for the next Games as a Mentor.”

Glamor picked up the loupe again and fitted it to his eye. “I remember feeling exactly what way about your mother before we moved her out of that pitiful District. If Lanus is willing to let Finnick come out for a night or two, I’d be happy to work something out.” He shifted from examining the ring to examining a pendant. “I am glad to hear that, Cinnabar, though I suspect you don’t want to hear it from me. After that first visit… I was worried about you.”

Cinna frowned. “Oh… well, I appreciate your willingness to, um, help. I’ll leave you to your work.”

Glamor Midas inclined his head and looked away from his son, back to his gold.

♦

In the midst of the Victory Tour for his girl champion, Finnick Odair appeared in Cinna’s bedroom again. This time he dispensed of all pleasantries and was already naked when Cinna got back to his bedroom, only slightly angry-tipsy on the cocktails that his father said he was finally old enough to drink.

Cinna was too surprised to do much when Finnick pulled him into bed.

As angry as he was, it was Finnick Odair. And Cinna loved him to destruction.

“Finnick?” Cinna asked, sliding his hand over the other boy’s face, “Why don’t you kiss me?”

“I kiss you,” muttered Finnick, his eyes still closed. “I kiss you _all_ over.”

“No,” Cinna murmured, “I mean, you never kiss me on the lips. Like, a real kiss.”

Finnick didn’t answer.

“I saw you,” Cinna said finally, baldly, “In the – thing, the movie. With Annika Templesmith. You kissed her on the lips.”

“She kissed me,” Finnick muttered, mouth barely moving. “You’ve never kissed me. Why should I kiss you when you’ve never kissed me either?”

Cinna’s brow gathered. “Because… you love me.”

Finnick rolled over, burying his face in the curve of his elbow. 

“Just go to sleep,” he muttered. His voice was muffled. “We can talk in the morning.”

“We won’t, though,” Cinna said, pulling the sheets up around his waist. “You’re always gone by the time I wake up. And then you – you don’t talk to me at all, and you just… show up after the Games.”

“Well, then come to the Capitol and find me,” Finnick said gruffly, face still shielded by his arm.

“I can’t,” Cinna said miserably. “They don’t let you leave the District ‘til you’re too old to be Reaped.”

“Then come find me in the Training arena,” Finnick grumbled.

“That’s stupid,” Cinna said angrily. “I’m not gonna be in the Hunger Games.”

“You _really_ can’t know that,” Finnick yawned, rolling over again and letting the sheet fall off his hips so he was bare to the knees. “No one knows.”

“I won’t be in the Games,” Cinna insisted. “My father is one of President Snow’s biggest supporters.”

Finnick’s brow furrowed. “So? Your name could still come out of the pool.”

“Well,” Cinna said, fidgeting a little, “I’ve never had to take out any tesserae. And… I’m not a Volunteer. Even if my name was picked, I wouldn’t have to go. Someone who wanted to play the Games would – ”

Finnick’s face was red. “‘Wanted to play’ the Games? Do you – do you think it’s _fun_?” 

Cinna pulled back and twisted the sheet. “I mean, I don’t – it wouldn’t be for me, but… I know how much the Volunteers at school look forward to it. How hard they train. They really want it, so… it must be.”

“Maybe until they actually get Reaped,” Finnick said, “But then they really meet their Mentors. We have Volunteers in Four, too. You may note that no one volunteered in my place and I had to go even though I was only _fourteen_.”

“Well, it just… it doesn’t work that way in One,” Cinna said meekly. “I’m sorry. And – and now you get to do all… _all_ sorts of things, and see different Districts, and… well, doesn’t that make it worth it?”

Finnick snorted. “I haven’t even gotten to see Four since I won. Aside from my Victory Tour, the only Districts I’ve gotten to see are One and Two. That’s where the wealthy people that Snow likes live.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“To buy me, Cinna,” Finnick said flatly. “For nights like this.” He paused. “Well, they usually aren’t like this, but I’m sure your tastes will change, anyway.”

“Wh—what do you mean, to buy you?” Cinna asked, tucking the sheets around himself more tightly.

“Are you that stupid?” Finnick hissed. “How do you think your _mother_ ended up here?”

Cinna’s blood boiled. “No. No. _No_. She was lucky to get out of a place like Eleven, she’s – she loves it here. My mom loves me and she loves my father.”

Finnick snorted and lay back against the rucked up pile of satin pillows, looking more naked than ever. “She loves him about as much as I love you, Cinna Midas. Mark my words.”

Cinna shoved his chest. “Stop talking about my mother like that!”

Finnick’s green eyes gleamed. “Like what? Like a whore? Takes one to know one, sweet little Cinna. Why do you think she never takes you with her to Eleven, huh? _She doesn’t want them to know you exist_.”

Cinna shoved him again. “Stop it! She can’t take me with her, fuckhead. I’m not old enough to leave the District.”

Finnick laughed. “You should try being in the Hunger Games. Then you can leave home whenever your good old Uncle Snow wants.”

Cinna’s eyes filled with tears. “Why are you doing this? I _love_ you; I _saved_ you. What did _I_ ever do wrong to you?”

“You bought me like cattle,” Finnick said calmly. “You bought me and you don’t think that’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know anyone bought you!” Cinna hissed. “I thought – I thought you knew I was the one who sent you your trident and you asked to come thank me! I thought you had fun and you wanted to come back!” Cinna tasted salt. “I thought you liked me.”

Finnick cooed softly and leaned over to pat Cinna’s cheek sweetly. “Never fall in love with a whore, Cinna Midas.” Then he pulled back and looked, really looked, at Cinna, crying softly beside him. “You really had no idea, did you?” Cinna was silent. “Cinna… you don’t _know_ me. How could you – the only thing you know about me is what you’ve seen of me at my _worst_. How could you love someone you don’t even know just because you watched them _kill children_?”

Cinna felt like there wasn’t enough air in Panem for him to breathe. “You were brave. Tributes are never really brave. They’re scared or they’re mean or they’re just lucky. But you were brave and… and you were nice to me and _no one_ is nice to me because I’m just a couturier student and my mother’s from Eleven and… ” he wiped his nose on the back of his hand. 

Finnick closed his eyes and rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. He collapsed back against the pillows again. “You should have let me die. Then we both wouldn’t feel like this right now.”

♦

Seven won the 67TH  
Hunger Games.

Finnick never arrived in Cinna’s room.

One won the 68TH. And no Finnick Odair.

But then the summer after the Hunger Games sent Persephone, as always, to Eleven with a kiss to Cinna’s head.

Only that year, she never returned.

“Let me go get her,” Cinna begged, “She probably just – she loses track of time. I’ll go get her. Can I get a dispensation to go to Eleven? Please?”

And because Coriolanus Snow liked Cinna Midas very much, Cinna boarded his first-ever train East. 

He had to present his papers at every District border, and his hands sweated every time. The train crossed into Two and Cinna was surprised at how different it was from One despite being so close: the roads were plain poured concrete and the houses simple, square, and white brick. Panem flags hung from every eave.

The fence borders to Eight were towering and scary and Cinna thought he’d lost his papers and only found them at the bottom of his bag at the last possible moment. Eight itself was smoggy from all the huge factories, their dark walls bigger and more imposing than anything Cinna had ever seen. A black moth landed on the train window and left a trail of slime when the speed of the wind whicked it away.

He slept through the short span of Nine, but when he woke up in Eleven, it was a different world. Rain poured too thick for him to see out the train’s windows, but the muggy heat was oppressive and his clothes stuck to the back of his beck. A swampy ozone smell wafted through the train corridors and he realized they were still near the Eleven-Four border and his heart clenched like lead in his chest.

Eleven took days to cross. The heat got thicker and drier as they moved east, the swamp smell giving way to fruit and mercury.

And then Cinna was dropped off at the station in the headquarters of the huge District, all alone except his papers and the names of his mother’s parents written on his sketchpad. He’d been told that his grandmother was informed of his arrival, but – 

“Excuse me, sir, are you Cinnabar Midas?”

Cinna whipped around. The woman was tall – taller than any natural woman Cinna had ever seen – and stood with her head held high like a queen. Her skin was wrinkled and loose from age and sun. Against the simple pale pink cotton of her dress, her skin looked the color of bitter chocolate but softened in her face to a warm cocoa. She had reddish-black freckles dotting her nose and gray streaks in her thick hair.

Cinna nodded.

The woman nodded back. “I’m Deere.”

Cinna felt bashful. “Hello, Deere. I’m Cinna, I’m your gr – I’m Persephone’s son.”

Deere smiled: a warm, knowing smile. “I know that, sweetheart. You have her eyes.” 

Cinna nodded and looked to the dusty red ground, the color of the Demitto iron rust. “Is she still here? She never came home.”

Deere shook her head sadly. “No, child. She was gone when we woke up the mornin’ of her train. Left a note on her pillow.”

Cinna’s face crumpled. “What did it say?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Deere patted his cheek. “I been wondering that myself.”

“Why – ” Cinna started to ask, but cut himself off as he looked around the District center. 

There was no schoolhouse here. 

He smiled at Deere. “I’d love to read it to you.”

Deere held his chin in her thumb tenderly. “You have her smile, too. I bet you were the most beautiful little child.”

Cinna blushed. “I have – I brought cinemographs with me, in case my mom needed… convincing, to come home. But I’d be happy to give them to you, if you want.”

“No, you keep those for Persephone. She’ll want them when you find her, wherever she is.” She held out her hand for Cinna to take. “You look hungry and like you could use a nice splash of cold water. That was a long way you traveled just to find your mama.”

“It wasn’t just to find her,” Cinna admitted, taking his grandmother’s hand and following along beside her. “I also wanted to find you.”

Ringing the red-brown, bleak square full of abandoned storefronts shadowed by the huge marble Justice hall were fields: endless, vast tracts of land covered in different crops that Cinna couldn’t name. Some were taller than the workers edging through their green-knuckled rows, pulling long sheets of green down from huge oblong plants and testing the yellow innards with their thumbs; long, waving amber plants like braids that shushed in the wind and came up to the knees of the straw-hatted workers deftly swinging scythes; lush, leafy green plants dotted with white and pink flowers, child workers pulling up big, green, lumpy pods. 

“That’s corn,” Deere explained, pointing to the tallest plants. “And that there next to it is wheat, and the flowering one is soybeans. If you look there yonder – ” she pointed further West – “That’s a rice paddy. The ground there is underwater, see?”

Cinna nodded, trying to take it all in. “That’s corn? I thought corn was little and yellow.”

Deere laughed. “I guess once Nine gets through with it, it is. It grows on long stalks called ears. There, see?” In the field, a tall worker peeled back the green wrapping of a husk and pulled away the glossy white silk, revealing the bright yellow germ beneath. “It’s corn.”

Cinna was amazed. “What are soybeans?”

“Well, they make a lot of things in the Capitol,” Deere said, turning the corner away from the fields and heading towards the narrow red-dust path. “It’s cheaper to grow than it is to raise animals in Ten and it doesn’t go bad near as quick in Nine for processing.”

Cinna nodded and pointed over to the huge orchard rows that were framed in Eastern blue twilight. “Is that all fruit?”

“Mm-hmm,” hummed Deere. “This time of year, there’s the apples and applecots, sweet cherries, chiles, gooseberries, melons. Those huge vines there are tomatoes. It’s a busy time of year.”

“Oh,” Cinna said, feeling his heart lurch, “I didn’t mean to keep you – if you’re going to get in trouble – ”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” Deere said, waving a dismissive hand. “Your mama is a good worker when she comes back here summers, and meeting my grandson, well, that’s a special occasion. I can spare an evening before you head off. ‘Sides, Zephur’s been out there since long before dawn today. That’s your granddad,” she explained, walking up the rickety steps to a tiny, raised wooden cottage.

Cinna smiled at his feet. _He had a grandfather_. 

The cottage was somehow even tinier inside than outside. There was a single oilpaper window over one of the two narrow, rickety beds. Straw stuck out from the lumpy mattresses. There was no chillbox or videoscreen or comm ports, just a plain wooden table and three chairs. A small covered cupboard rested unevenly against the far wall.

Deere bustled to the fat potbelly stove and bent to stoke the small fire. She set a cracked cast-iron kettle atop its burner and filled it with water from a bucket. Then she turned to Cinna with a brilliant smile. 

“So why don’t you show me those cinemographs? When that water’s hot you can have a nice cup of nettle tea. When Zephur gets home, you can read us that letter from Persephone.”

Cinna nodded and pulled the packet of pictures from his bag. Deere’s hand was cool and callused where it rested on his wrist as he told her about his childhood with his mother, and Cinna thought vaguely that he felt more at ease here than he ever had in the abyss of the dining room at home.

It was no wonder his mother had run away.

Zephur was a wizened old man in a faded red shirt and overalls, and he didn’t say much when he got home. He clapped Cinna’s shoulder with a knowing sort of sad respect, and bustled out to a shared back terrace to bring in the meager produce for supper. They ate fried apples and cabbage and a gritty quickbread of tessera grains, and Cinna hemmed and hawed over taking the peach that Deere offered him for dessert, because he could see it was the last in their cupboard. 

But his mother had been telling the truth: it was so much sweeter here than in One. 

“Here, now,” Deere said, taking the sheet of thin paper from the bottom of the cupboard. “This is what Persephone left.”

Cinna snatched it and read it. He frowned. “It’s a poem, and a number.”

“What does it say?” asked Deere, settling back in her chair. She thumbed again through the cinemographs of Cinna as a baby in Persephone’s arms, her eyes bright.

“‘What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?’” Cinna read. “And then there’s the number thirteen.”

Deere and Zephur locked eyes.

“She run to Thirteen,” Zephur said, his dark, powerful hands making a steeple on the tabletop. “She finally done it.”

“Thirteen?” Cinna echoed, looking from Deere to Zephur and back, “What’s Thirteen?”

“District Thirteen, honey,” Deere murmured, stroking Cinna’s hair back from his face. “She’s run away to District Thirteen.”

“There is no Thirteen,” Cinna said, shaking his head. His hands felt clammy. 

“There is,” Deere said. “Through Twelve, go North, you hit Thirteen. It’s underground, sweetheart. And it’s free.”

“No, it’s gone, the Capitol – ”

“That friend of hers, Heavensbee, he’s come from Thirteen,” Deere whispered. “He told her how to get there a long time ago; she was just biding her time ‘til she could run.”

“So you’re telling me that not only is District Thirteen still there, but you can tell that’s where she went because of a _poem_ and – and that she’s always been planning to leave me?” Cinna asked, his voice wobbling against the trap in his throat. 

“That’s not just any poem, sweetheart,” Deere said apologetically, rubbing her thumb below Cinna’s wet eye. “It’s from the Dark Days. That poem is illegal. It’s about God. It’s about how no man is more powerful than God.”

Cinna shook his head. “There is no God.”

Deere patted his hand. “I don’t know whether it’s true or not true. But there’s no proof there isn’t a God out there. And if there is? He’s bigger than the Capitol, sweetheart. He is the only one who can create and destroy, no matter what that President Snow thinks. That’s who’s _really_ in charge.”

“‘In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire?’” rumbled Zephur beside her: a deep bass voice filled with music. “‘What the hand dare seize the fire?’ Persephone seized that fire and she run with it. She’s gone.”

Cinna blinked and felt the tears slide down his cheeks. “She really didn’t ever love me. She’s been planning on running away for my whole life.”

“Sweetheart, she wanted to bring you with her,” Deere whispered. “That’s why she left you that letter. She did love you. Why do you think she waited ‘til you were grown up? She couldn’t leave you alone with that man.”

“But now I am alone,” Cinna whispered. “I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for her.”

“Follow where that poem takes you,” Zephur said. “That’s how you can find Thirteen.”

“I don’t – ”

“‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night,’” Deere recited, shuffling a cinemograph of Cinna and Blake to the top of the stack of pictures. “‘What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?’”

♦

Two won the 69  
TH Hunger Games, and Finnick never appeared, but Cinna didn’t expect it anymore. He had other birthday guests that he needed to see.

“On what wings dare he aspire?” Cinna asked, leaning against the railing and watching the blue-gray smoke from Plutarch’s cigarando furl off into the night. “What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

“So you finally figured it out?” Plutarch asked, flicking orange ash from the end of the cigarando. “Took you six years.”

“I know,” Cinna admitted, lifting his head. “It took Finnick Odair. It took my mother leaving me. I’ve known for ages. I just wasn’t old enough to leave One. But I have now. I’ve been to Eleven. And there are still eleven more Districts for me to see.”

Plutarch Heavensbee turned, cigarando burning low. “You should. It’s eye-opening.”

Cinna chewed the inside of his cheek. 

“Did my mother make it?”

Plutarch just flicked the end of the cigarando onto the cold marble of the balcony. He ground it out beneath his heel.

Cinna sighed, determined. “Why that poem?”

Plutarch smiled and ground out his ashes. “It’s a map. Tells you how to get from Eleven to Thirteen. ‘The forests of the night,’ you have to go East through the Orchards. Best to go at night, when the guard towers are changing shifts. ‘Fearful symmetry,’ follow the fence. ‘Distant skies burnt the fire – ’”

“District Twelve,” guessed Cinna. 

Plutarch nodded, pleased. “‘Twist the sinews of thy heart’… there’s a crooked path through the Twelve woods, heading towards the Wilderness. ‘Watered down heaven’ is about this little lake in the forest there, almost at the border between the Twelve woods and the Wilderness. There’s a house there with some supplies and a good roof. Most of our good allies are from Twelve; they keep the house stocked and the mayor out there makes sure the electric fences are off.”

“And you follow the far fence again,” finished Cinna. “The fearful symmetry.”

Plutarch nodded, sober. “I gave you that tiger so that you’d be able to find her some day, if you were so inclined to learn enough to realize where she went.” He clapped Cinna on the shoulder. “I’m glad you were. You’re a smart boy, Cinnabar Midas. And you have a good heart after all.”

“It’s because everyone I’ve ever loved is a Victor,” Cinna muttered, looking off the balcony and down over the sparkling, reflective madness of the Alterior square and how the lights faded out towards the Demitto in the south before exploding into the neon-bright knot of the Capitol, far off in the distance but gleaming.

“You’re lucky,” Plutarch said. “Most of us have to live on after loving only Tributes.”

Cinna gave him a tight-lipped smile. Plutarch nodded gratefully and lit another cigarando. He offered one to Cinna, who shook his head.

Blake wandered out onto the balcony, huge feet padding silently, and rubbed the soft side of his face against Cinna’s thigh. Cinna reached down to rub Blake’s thick ruff.

“Plutarch,” he said thoughtfully, still scratching Blake’s fur. Blake yawned spectacularly, baring his teeth. “You’re a muttations regulator, aren’t you?”

The older man nodded, puffing away. “Tipped for the top job.” He paused. “You have to know what weapons your enemy’s got.” 

“Have you ever thought about being a Gamemaker?” Cinna asked, looking up at him. “Maybe letting some designers know what mutts’ll be in the Arena so we can bring more Tributes home?”

Plutarch’s eyes narrowed. “Think about the lives of the Victors you’ve known, Cinna. Is it really worth winning for that?”

Cinna’s jaw set. “Then we get the Victors to Thirteen.”

Plutarch shook his head. “It’s a nice idea, but that would just kill all their families. That’s what they do, Cinna. That’s how your mother and Finnick and Cashmere and Gloss and end up the way they are. They threaten to kill the Victors’ families.”

“Threaten?”

Plutarch’s eyes darkened. “They _do_ kill the Victors’ families. It’s what happened to Haymitch Abernathy.”

“So we save the families, too.”

“Too suspicious,” Plutarch said, shaking his head again. “Plus, the Victors’ Villages are bugged to shit. There’d be no way.”

Cinna looked out over the horizon at the blinding ball of light that lit up the sky from its cradle in the mountains. “Then we stop the Hunger Games, and we save them all.”

Plutarch laughed wryly. “Stop the Hunger Games? Just two men against the might of the Capitol? How exactly do you think we’ll do that?”

Cinna took a deep breath. “I saved Finnick Odair’s life. Just one kid. And you know how I did it?” He patted Blake’s head. “I noticed what Finnick was wearing at his Opening Ceremonies. And I sent the right weapon into the Arena.”

♦

“What are you doing here?” Finnick asked, his rosy mouth a thin, hard line as he crossed his tanned arms from his perch on the chaise longue.

Cinna felt the familiar tug in the base of his stomach as he looked at Finnick Odair. “I have something that you want.”

“ _You don’t have anything I want_ ,” Finnick hissed. “Don’t you think that trident was enough?”

Cinna felt the twitch in his cheek. He tried his hardest to look composed. “I have the blueprints for this year’s Arena. And there’s a flaw I think your Tributes should know.”

Finnick stared at Cinna Midas. Cinna stood his ground and stared back.

“Shut the door,” Finnick said, sitting up and making room for Cinna on the chaise. “You can have half an hour.”

“It’ll only take me five minutes to tell you,” Cinna said, but he shut the door anyway. “It’s a pretty major error, but I think it’ll work to your kids’ advantage. At least, from what I know about District Four. Which isn’t much, I guess, but – ”

“Shut up,” Finnick said, sounding half-bored and half-amused. “You can _have_ half an hour. And you can pay me with those blueprints so it can’t be traced.”

Cinna shook his head. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

Finnick smiled wryly. “I’m not fifteen anymore, Cinna Midas. And you turned out pretty cute.”

Cinna felt his face glow hot. “The Arena is a gorge. They’re planning an earthquake every twelve hours, you know, mudslides and everything with them. But the faultlines are too close to the Old Mississippi Dam. The walls _are_ going to collapse and the arena’s going to go under. It’ll take… five minutes, maximum, once the seal is breached. Your kids can swim, right?”

Finnick was white beneath his sunkissed bronze tan. He nodded, looking dazed. “Before they could even walk.”

“Make sure they know to stick to high ground,” Cinna said. “But not the trees. They’re patches, and the water will tear them right up. They might get crushed. There’s – there’s a pocket of caves in the Northwest corner of the Arena. Send them there and have them wait it out. It should only take a few days. Maybe a week, if they’re unlucky.”

“How did you find out about this?” Finnick breathed, curling his knees up to his chest as Cinna stepped a few paces closer.

Cinna smirked. “I fucked Seneca Crane’s son.”

Finnick raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Now that’s a strategy. I fucked Crane and got nothing.” 

Cinna wrinkled his nose. “That’s actually not an image that I ever needed in my head.”

Finnick winked. “Like father, like son.”

Cinna groaned and for the first time in years, he and Finnick Odair shared a laugh. This one might have been real.

“Come sit by me, Cinna the Conspirator,” Finnick said, patting the cranberry velvet of the chaise longue. 

Cinna scratched the back of his neck and sat, stiff and awkward.

“Isn’t today your birthday?” Finnick asked. He slid his hand over Cinna’s knee.

Cinna looked over to the beautiful man at his side. “Isn’t it yours, too?”

“You’re too old for the Reapings now,” Finnick noted. “Congratulations.”

Cinna frowned. “I almost Volunteered, you know. That year. Just to – I just wanted you to see that I wasn’t useless and afraid. But they wouldn’t let me. They said, ‘you’re not a top odd; don’t you have District pride? Don’t you want One to win again?’”

“You would have died,” Finnick said seriously.

“I know,” Cinna said, and shrugged. “It seemed worth it at the time, knowing what I did to you. And what the Games did to my mother. But then Helvius Crane came out to the school to scout for an apprentice, and I saw the blueprints in his bag and… In One, if you steal, they hang you. But I don’t care what they do in One anymore.”

Finnick looked at his knees. “I know it wasn’t your idea. Plutarch told me. You really never had any idea.”

Cinna shook his head.

“He said your mother’s gone.”

Cinna looked up. “Did she make it? Do you know? Is she in Thirteen?”

“I don’t know.” Finnick shrugged. “I’ve never had contact with them yet. They said the best thing I can do is keep my ears open out here for now, and I don’t have anything better to do, so…”

Cinna nodded, studying his shoes. Finnick reached over and put a hand on Cinna’s knee again, and Cinna didn’t stop him. 

After, Cinna straightened his pants and found the small packet of pink powder in his pocket. 

“Oh,” he said, pulling it out and proffering it to Finnick, “I brought – I’d just heard that you, um… collect your own fee?”

Finnick waved a hand and smiled. It wasn’t cruel. He pocketed the dam arena blueprints instead. “I did, but… no, thanks. I think now I get paid in secrets.”

* * *

[](http://statcounter.com/free-web-stats/)


End file.
